My 2nd grader is really taken with Roald Dahl.
Addicted to, even.
Obsessed with.
Sweet on.
In the past two weeks alone, she’s read George’s Marvelous Medicine, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits and Fantastic Mr. Fox.
When I ask her what she loves about Dahl’s writing, she says, "He is hilarious!"
And then she launches into a story about Grandpa Joe leaping out of bed when Charlie finds the golden ticket, and this somehow segues into an antecdote about the absurd trickery of Mr. and Mrs. Twit and then she starts listing the books she’s reading next.
Charlie and Great Glass Elevator… James and the Giant Peach… The BFG.
She has to stop to take a breath.
Her whole face is gleaming.
This is a child who is sometimes a tad bit blasé about school.
Discussing the relative merits of Dahl’s illustrators — Quentin Blake as compared to Lane Smith or Patrick Benson.
Discussing whether it’s sad — even a bit sad — that kids disappeared from Willa Wonka’s factory faster than you could eat a Hersey’s kiss.
And she would keep discussing various, interesting aspects if she wasn’t so desperate to get back to her book.
And I would keep talking about how delicious and compelling a fixation this is if I weren’t so worried about what’s going to happen when she runs out of Roald Dahl books?
It’s going to be worse than a three-year-old giving up her pacifier, I’m afraid…
Don’t worry. I have a feeling she’ll re-read them all over again. And again. And again. Or she might take to copying her favorite passages out by hand. Or reciting them at the dinner table. Or drawing her own illustrations. Obsession is a beautiful thing.
Ooooo, I hope so. That sounds like a treat for us all….
Oh what a joy to read this.
What a joy to experience, to know there are so many more wonderful books to share with her.
I know. I LOVE this part of parenting…
That is awesome, Liz! Make sure you get her Matilda.
I actually practiced typing, while in middle school, by typing a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Does that mean she might grow up to be like you?????
Crossing fingers!
Oh, she sounds much smarter than me. I love the bit about discussing the relative merits of the different illustrators. So fun! Enjoy it.
big fan in my house, too
Ana has been hounding me to read Matilda and the BFG. Guess I better–two such literary critics can’t be wrong.
Sorry–that was me!
Barb